Analyze environmental data
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 11 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Analyzing Data or Information (4.A.2.a.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 11 occupations that perform it.
- Conduct experiments to investigate the underlying mechanisms of plant growth and response to the environment.
- Compile or interpret biodata to determine extent or type of wetlands or to aid in program formulation.
- Formulate predictions by interpreting environmental data, such as meteorological, atmospheric, oceanic, paleoclimate, climate, or related information.
- Collect and analyze data to determine environmental conditions and restoration needs.
- Perform environmentally extended input-output (EE I-O) analyses.
- Identify risks for natural disasters, such as mudslides, earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions.
- Study public water supply issues, including flood and drought risks, water quality, wastewater, and impacts on wetland habitats.
- Identify spatial coordinates, using remote sensing and Global Positioning System (GPS) data.
- Perform statistical analysis of environmental data.
- Analyze ecological data about the impact of pollution, erosion, floods, and other environmental problems on bodies of water.
- Analyze samples, such as air or water samples, for contaminants or other elements.
- Identify areas in need of pesticide treatment by analyzing geospatial data to determine insect movement and damage patterns.
- Use geospatial technology to develop soil sampling grids or identify sampling sites for testing characteristics such as nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium content, pH, or micronutrients.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
11 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Atmospheric and Space Scientists
- Conservation Scientists
- Environmental Restoration Planners
- Environmental Science and Protection Technicians, Including Health
- Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers
- Hydrologic Technicians
- Hydrologists
- Industrial Ecologists
- Nuclear Monitoring Technicians
- Precision Agriculture Technicians
- Soil and Plant Scientists
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Analyze environmental or geospatial data”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.